Monthly Archives: November 2015

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Some students have the luxury of going home over Thanksgiving break, while others might have an invitation to a friend or professor’s house. However, there will always be those who take the solitary road, and spend the weekend alone in their dorm rooms. Here are some suggestions of fun activities you can do while your classmates eat homecooked meals and relax.

• Eat an entire chicken-in-a-can

• Study harder

• Study Hard 3: A Good Day to Study Hard

• Make a giant mess in the dorm kitchen and then not clean it up

• Clean up the mysterious mess in the dorm kitchen

• Capitalize on the spike in thank rates. Hoard all the thanks you can get over break, and then resell them in December at a higher price

• Make sure your gift blankets are free from any foreign diseases

• Find a professor who dresses up in a turkey costume (they exist) and dress up with them

• Thank your friends for sticking with you through this hard and lonely time- Uh, hello? Anyone there?

• Be thankful for Black Friday

• Sleep. The entire time. Not like you’re going to get any sleep when classes are in session, right?

• On second thought, what kind of CMU student doesn’t have homework to do over Thanksgiving break? You ain’t got no time for sleep, buddy

Anti-immigration fervor is nothing new in America, but for much of the past decade the nation sending the drugs, crime, and rapists (and some, I assume, good people) has been Mexico. Now, Mexican immigrants across the country are seeing some respite as the xenophobia has found a new target.

Despite being in wars in the Middle East at the same time, causing an awful ruckus and directly or indirectly helping with the displacement of a buncha civilians, America hasn’t really had an issue with immigrants from the region. Even in the past few years as other European nations have struggled with migrants, the United States has remained aloof. Probably because rafts struggle enough to make it across the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic is a bit larger pond.

However, with the attacks in Paris, patriotic Americans across the country have realized that not only are terrorists kinda shitty when they attack brown people, but they’re even shittier when they ruin your favorite vacation spot. And as Paris was targeted because it’s the capital of corruption, Las Vegas is surely on a list somewhere.

To save America’s own sin city, it must close its borders to anyone who might be a terrorist, the patriots say. And you know who could be a terrorists? Anyone from over there. If they’ve got brown skin and a beard, they’re probably a terrorist.

What does this mean? It means Syria is out, and Mexico is forgotten, because the brown people there aren’t known for their beards and turbans. Donald Trump took a break from shaking down Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto for his lunch money and started yelling something about Syrians. He was followed closely by Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and the rest of the usual suspects.

“I noticed people stopped bothering so much in the past few days,” one Hispanic person said. “Well, I’m not even Mexican. My parents were from Puerto Rico, which is technically a part of the United States, but we all get called lazy fence-jumpers anyways. Not anymore, though.”

“It sucks, what happened in France. Instead of being treated like mierda though, now I get to listen to people complain about Syrians and how those Parisians shoulda had some guns or this whole thing wouldn’t have happened.”

Obama’s plan to bring Syrian immigrants to America has been faced with fierce opposition. At least 26 governors have voiced their displeasure and spoken out against refugees being housed in their states. However, border controls remain at the mercy of our commander in chief. Who knows, if Trump gets elected, maybe we’ll extort Bashar Al-Assad for a big-ass wall across the Atlantic.

During one of the campus tours on November 18, at the most hallowed part of the tour — the Fence — a prospective student jabbed a knife into the Fence, presumably to see exactly how thick those 4,724 layers of paint were. Garrett Thornburg, the alleged perpetrator, claims to have been “surveying the progress of all the organizations that made the six-legged piece of history possible. I figured the knife would give me a good idea just how thick the paint was.” However, the knife’s 5 inch blade was not long enough to go through all the paint, so Thornburg was unable to determine the paint’s thickness. To make matters worse, a whopping 82-ounce chunk of dried paint fell off the Fence.

“AAAARrrrgggghhhh!” an anguishing voice gasped, following the spilling of Fence blood. CMU Police heard the cries for help and called EMS for an emergency paint-aid.

With the thousands of volunteers teaming up to fill in the hulking dent, the Fence appeared to have been repaired to proper working order overnight.

Thornburg felt relieved that the Fence was not utterly destroyed by his knife, and life seemed to return to normal. But on the third day after The Incident, he noticed strange things beginning to happen. At first, it was just little oddities, like the feeling that any picture of Andrew Carnegie on his numerous advertisemen- er, college info mailings — was staring intently at him, or little pieces of gravel from the Fence’s surrounding area remaining stuck in his shoes, even after he thought he had cleaned them out.

However, the weird occurrences began amping up, in both frequency and intensity. The mailings kept coming, even after he asked to be removed from the list, and he tossed and turned in his sleep, having nightmares of that horrendous cry he had drawn from the Fence.

When Thornburg was out for walks, he had to keep looking over his shoulder, feeling like someone or something was following him. Stationary figures kept watch, appearing in the distance and walking up nearby flagpoles. Individuals with brightly-colored shirts kept sitting awkwardly still across the room in restaurants.

One day, the statues from Walking to Sky finally caught up with Thornburg. We will never speak of his fate, but let it be a warning to any who would dare incur the Curse of the Fence.

With the Democratic nomination in sight, Senator Hillary Clinton has redoubled her efforts to portray herself as the most viable, humane candidate for the upcoming presidency. She will have to win the initial primary against major competitor, Senator Bernie Sanders, and all the other candidates we have already forgotten.

“Major campaign efforts went into creating a large presence on the ‘Internet,’” Senator Clinton said in a recent interview. “It’s a strange contraption Al Gore invented, and all the youths have been on and I recognized the need for me and my image to also be with those youth on the internet. I am on the Twitters, Instagrammy, and basically any other website you can imagine. If you use it, I will be there, providing updates about my life that you did not realize you needed. Please vote for me,” she added in a low whisper.

Senator Clinton is also just like us. Sometimes, voters forget that she is a senator at all. When several supporters were asked about their views on the candidate, they responded they initially believed she was a young, hip, fun, hilarious, meme-wielding woman. One supporter said he really related to how Senator Clinton lifts thirty pounds on a daily basis, while occasionally pigging out on thirty pints of chocolate mint ice cream at home. “I don’t really care what her stance is as long as she thinks Chandler is the best of them all.”

Most recently, the Benghazi hearing has been nothing but a strong boost to her mirror image. When asked if her use of a private email server exposed classified information, she responded, “I love Gmail. It is the best email service, much better than Yahoo!” When the committee looked bewildered, she added, “I also helped New York rebuild after the 9/11 attacks,” and was met with thunderous applause.

Her latest efforts to identify with voters include a 30-day binge at Chipotle, which she believes everyone has done, but doesn’t admit it.

Climate scientists were baffled last week as President Obama’s decision to reject the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline unexpectedly removed all greenhouse gases from Earth’s atmosphere.

Furthermore, analysis conducted at the nation’s power plants and factories confirmed that as a result of this decision, carbon dioxide is no longer a waste product of power generation, manufacturing, or any system involving the burning of fossil fuels, in defiance of our current understanding of chemistry. Environmentalists are celebrating the world over, secure in the knowledge that their years-long effort to prevent the construction of the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline has protected the planet from climate change for the foreseeable future.

Bill McKibben, head of the anti-Keystone XL group 350, released a statement in the wake of this victory:

“When we at 350.org told the nation that keeping the Keystone pipeline from being built was an incredibly important environmental prerogative, people scoffed. Some even said – get this! – that the Keystone fight was mostly symbolic, and that existence or nonexistence of the pipeline would have only a marginal effect on the environment one way or the other.

“Well, now the whole world can see what we’ve known here at 350 for years: canceling the pipeline would instantly solve our global warming crisis. It was that easy! We didn’t have to worry about fuel efficiency, or alternative energy, or even recycling! We just had to prevent Keystone from happening, and bam! Environment fixed!

“Oh, and by the way. If the President had allowed Keystone to go through? We’d all be dead by now, since the atmosphere would have become 100% carbon dioxide in a matter of seconds. Anyway, no need to thank us; we already know that we’re awesome.”

Seeing as President Obama has taken literally any action, there are, of course, dissenting voices. Senate Majority Leader and coal fetishist Mitch McConnell has harshly criticized the President on his decision, saying that by nixing Keystone, Obama has “doomed America’s economy unto a thousand years of torment, where it shall know only sorrow and worryingly high unemployment.”

Republican frontrunner (prolonged sigh) Donald Trump has also criticized the decision in a recent campaign appearance, in between saying something racist about immigrants and inviting an audience member to confirm that his hair is real.

On November 5, the Tartan Express fled CMU in an effort to keep a water tank from exploding. When the truck arrived at the service station, first responders first noticed an overpowering smell of potatoes. Upon opening the gas cap, hundreds of spuds spilled out.

It was apparent that it was a sabotage, possibly even a assassination attempt of the cook.The water inlet was thoroughly clogged with banana peelings, which contain dangerous levels of potassium. As everybody knows, potassium reacts explosively with water, so it was a good thing that there hadn’t actually been any flowing water available in the truck.

Campus police reported a disturbance at Housing Services last week. First-year Ima Payne was overheard throwing a temper tantrum over their room selection, demanding to be paired with someone else.

“Why the hell does CMU’s roommate selection get people so wrong? My life’s been hard enough getting here, and yet I have to deal with this shit?” they reportedly screamed at the housing staff, after attempting to slam all the door handles used to test keycards.

When police arrived, Payne was still going. “How would you like it with dirty dishes, rotting food, and laundry everywhere? Don’t even get me started on how gross the bathroom is!” As they were taking the suspect into custody, Payne could be heard shouting, “Ugh, living in a single is the WORST choice I ever made!”

A child reported missing 13 years ago in Alabama has resurfaced in the basement of Doherty. The Coast Guard (or whoever it is who searches for missing children) had given up after the seven-year deadline passed, and the minor was listed as “dead” instead of missing. Because, you know, surviving for 2555 days is relatively likely, but 2556 days is just one too many.

However, sometime in the wee hours between November 9th and 10th, FMS employee Jack Powers was mopping the floor of Doherty bowling alley when he heard a rustling of a camo tarp. Investigating further through the doorway to the art display case, he found that one of the figures was really a person.

Apparently, while on a campus visit for an older sibling, the child had wandered into the halls of Doherty and gotten lost. They survived the past 13 years on the leavings of art students and by trading colored pieces of cloth for food with the participants of CtFwS.

Hey there, Tartan baby. We hear you have a gremlin problem in your server room. We just want you to know we’re here for you, no matter what you might be hiding in your closet. Gremlins, skeletons, herpes, we won’t judge.

It’s been some time since we’ve really sat down and had a page-to-page talk. How’s it been, just down the hall? Sometimes we just seem so distant. Probably because it’s hard for a floppy newspaper and flimsy newsletter to make any directed movements at all.

I just want to feel the brush of your color pages, somewhere a little more private than the newsstands we share around campus. We could share so much more, if you would just give us a chance. There’s always room on our website if your copy needs a place to stay. We don’t have much, just a wordpress account, but we’d do anything for you.

As the days get colder, it would be nice to have someone to collate with. It might start with a little sheaf rustling, but as things got steamier, our ink would run together and we wouldn’t be able to tell your colors from my black-and-white. Your type and mine might not seem like a good match, but I assure you, once we start giving print jobs none of that would matter.

I hear rumors you’ve been hanging out with that Jewish porno, the Cut, or with the Thistle. The Cut’s alright, but the yearbook’s a little prickly, don’t you think? We never had any binding, and our relationship was purely for the readership, but it still stings a little to see you sharing your rack.

I might have some issues, but you know you won’t get a better masthead from any of those other pandering publications. There might be some typos here and there, and if we schedule a date, I’m liable to miss it, or show up an hour late, but I swear I can improve. I just need a second chance. I tried to surprise you with the Onion, but you just ended up with tears in your eyes.

Just an open letter, to tell you that I’m always up for some word play if you are.

Google has a long history of cool new products, but they may have outdone themselves this week! Last Sunday Sergei Brin, head of Google’s R&D wing, announced the development of Google Prey, a fleet of autonomous hunter-killer drones. The drones, developed secretly as part of one of Google’ “moonshot” technical projects, will be based in the Silicon Valley Googleplex but will range across most of the US, along with Mexico, Western Canada, and some Pacific shipping lanes.

Brin brought a Prey drone with him to demonstrate for the audience. It follows Google’s characteristic minimalist design, painted white with the Google logo on both sides. It also has a smiley face on the tracking nose cone to humanize it. The autonomous platform carries an array of advanced sensor gear (to be used in Google Maps surveying) and two AGM-114 “Hellfire” anti-tank missiles for “self-defense and brand management.” It also features a low-latency Internet connection, allowing it to respond to new situations in real time. Brin even presented an exciting technical demo in which the drone circled above the crowd, turning to face and marking in an internal database anyone who tweeted in #GooglePrey. It concluded the presentation by dropping a brand-new Android smartphone to the journalist who got the most retweets!

Surprisingly, not all reactions to the drones have been positive. Stanford University professor Lena Dowell sharply criticized the Prey project. “‘Google Prey’ is terrible branding. They’re drones, they should be doing the hunting. ‘Google Predator,’ maybe? ‘Google Sky-Net’? ‘Google Ultron’?” Several other Stanford professors claimed that the drones were a “human rights disaster on par with Google Plus,” but as of press time they seem to have vanished and my searches turned up no contact information or explanation of where they went.

Brin says the fleet will launch in early December and that he expects “No significant obstacles” to their deployment.